
gods. Extinction of the flame was considered a great tragedy for it was not in the power of humans to rekindle it. According to Carl Jung, myths arise from the archetypes of the collective unconscious and signify truths meaningful in the alpha, theta and delta brain states. In these lower frequency brain states, rational language gives way to a symbolic, intuitive, mythical one that is, nevertheless, completely meaningful to the human psyche.


Johannes Kepler. In his "Mysterium Cosmographicum", is indignant at the need to justify the scientific pursuit,
"We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is
their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought
not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the
heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the
treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the
human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment."

In "Brighter than a Thousand Suns," Robert Jungk writes how the physicist James Frank, "would tell his pupils that only one who was entirely absorbed by physics and actually dreamed about it could hope for enlightenment. He spoke of his own inspirations in the language of a medieval mystic.
"The only way I can tell that a new idea is really important is the feeling of terror that seizes me.""
The great mathematician Henri Poincare speaks of how
"A
scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in
his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and
of the same nature." and that,
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful. He studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing then life would not be worth living. Of course, I do not here speak of that beauty that strikes the senses, the beauty of qualities and appearances. Not that I undervalue such beauty, far from it, but it has nothing to do with science. I mean that profounder beauty which comes from the harmonious order of the parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp."
A perfect illustration of Poincare's words is captured by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar as he writes about the discovery of the rotating solution of the Einstein field equations by the New Zealand mathematician, Roy Kerr,
"This shuddering before the beautiful, this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound."
In the above stirrings of deep emotion are to be found all that one speaks of as the culture of a domain. This culture provides the indomitable energy, enthusiasm and drive to pursue first the domain then enter the field and contribute creatively to inquiry and research.
When the culture is living, it sparks the tinder minds and hearts into a flaming aspiration to discover and explore, inquiry and engage in research, to learn, to teach, to share the joys of learning, to bring the fruits of inquiry to enrich and ennoble humanity, to look upon the whole of existence with that deep and exalted feeling.



Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!"
Fortunately,
their thoughts are alive and already in the throes of quickening a new
birth. It is for all inquiring individuals to fan the sparks into the
blazing flame of a living culture and derive warmth and nourishment from
it. The CFRCE Theoretical and Mathematical Forum invites such
individuals to come forward to rekindle the flame.